According to http://www.russianspaceweb.com/phobos_grunt_design.html (which I'm still interpreting) there may be attitude control thrusters used during the early stages. "Low-thrust attitude-control thrusters onboard MDU had a combined thrust of 20-25 kilograms." If it does use thrusters - then this *may* explain the changes in orbit. It would also mean that some part of the spacecraft is still operational. [I'm speculating and asking for feedback on its thruster knowledge]. Rough calculations based on a delta V of 1 m/s (from Ted's calculations) would be about 60 seconds of attitude thrusting within a day. Not unreasonable. Paul S. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20111113/d1480ac5/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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